THE FIRST BOOK 31 



confutations and solutions of every scruple, cavilla- 

 tion, and objection ; breeding for the most part one 

 question as fast as it solveth another ; even as in the 

 former resemblance, when you carry the light into one 

 corner, you darken the rest ; so that the fable and 

 fiction of Scylla seemeth to be a lively image of this 

 kind of philosophy or knowledge ; which was trans- 

 formed into a comely virgin for the upper parts ; but 

 then ' Candida succinctam latrantibus inquina monstris ': 

 so the generalities of the schoolmen are for a while 

 good and proportionable ; but then when you descend 

 into tlieir distinctions and decisions, instead of a fruitful 

 womb for the use and benefit of man's life, they end 

 in monstrous altercations and barking questions. So 

 as it is not possible but this quality of knowledge must 

 fall under popular contempt, the people being apt to 

 contemn truth upon occasion of controversies and alter- 

 cations, and to think they are all out of their way which 

 never meet ; and when they see such digladiation 

 about subtilties, and matter of no use or moment, they 

 easily fall upon that judgement of Dionysius of Syra- 

 cusa, ' Verba ista sunt senum otiosorum.' 



7. Notwithstanding, certain it is that if those school- 

 men to their great thirst of truth and unwearied travail 

 of wit had joined variety and universality of reading 

 and contemplation, they had proved excellent lights, 

 to the great advancement of all learning and know- 

 ledge ; but as they are, they are great undertakers 

 indeed, and fierce with dark keeping. But as in the 

 inquiry of the divine truth, their pride inclined to 

 leave the oracle of God's word, and to vanish in the 

 mixture of their own inventions ; so in the inquisition 

 of nature, they ever left the oracle of God's works, 

 and adored the deceiving and deformed images which 

 the unequal mirror of their own minds, or a few received 

 authors or principles, did represent unto them. And 

 thus much for the second disease of learning. 



8. For the third vice or disease of learning, which 

 concerneth deceit or untruth, it is of all the rest the 

 foulest ; as that which doth destroy the essential form 



